Why Was Oricon Never Made Solo-Friendly?

[fushnchips]

That's what they always tell you to lurk you in, but do not believe the lies! No operation is ever done in under 1 hour.

 

The walkthrough itself might only take 45 minutes. But at least 4 of the following things ALWAYS happen:

 

1. After you have 8 (16) players, it takes nonetheless 20 minutes until the team finally enters the OP.

 

2. The main tank disconnects and then has to reassamble his/her computer which takes at least 15 minutes.

 

3. The healer's cat scratches the door of his room and his mum yells at him to do something about it. This takes 3 times 5 minutes.

 

4. Various short breaks for smoking and/or toilet break, never at the same time though but in a row.

 

5. Dinner time.

 

6. The mum of one of the DPS needs the computer for herself, so the DPS has to quit the group.

 

7. The replacement for the DPS takes 15 minutes to join the OPs, because he has to list his crafts on the GTN first.

 

8. Your group wipes 4 times at trash, because no one pays attention or cares.

 

9. Bugs prevent you from progressing in the OPs.

 

You might think I'm joking, but all of the above always happened and happen when I play OPs. It's one of the reasons I dislike this content.

 

Well all the people you play with just seem to be full of poor excuses get into a guild that has a solid weekly ops runs that also have fun while doing these ops it's not hard at all so please stop using the excuse of others not to run quality content.

[masterceil]

That's what they always tell you to lurk you in, but do not believe the lies! No operation is ever done in under 1 hour.

 

The walkthrough itself might only take 45 minutes. But at least 4 of the following things ALWAYS happen:

 

1. After you have 8 (16) players, it takes nonetheless 20 minutes until the team finally enters the OP.

 

2. The main tank disconnects and then has to reassamble his/her computer which takes at least 15 minutes.

 

3. The healer's cat scratches the door of his room and his mum yells at him to do something about it. This takes 3 times 5 minutes.

 

4. Various short breaks for smoking and/or toilet break, never at the same time though but in a row.

 

5. Dinner time.

 

6. The mum of one of the DPS needs the computer for herself, so the DPS has to quit the group.

 

7. The replacement for the DPS takes 15 minutes to join the OPs, because he has to list his crafts on the GTN first.

 

8. Your group wipes 4 times at trash, because no one pays attention or cares.

 

9. Bugs prevent you from progressing in the OPs.

 

You might think I'm joking, but all of the above always happened and happen when I play OPs. It's one of the reasons I dislike this content.

 

Ops fan here, this is sadly Real Talk with quite a few pugs, on either faction. Half hour to form and load in. Random bio breaks before and/or after every single boss (especially SnV). Random brbs. Even the 'dinner' thing was not an exaggeration on your part - I've seen it on way more than one occasion. It really is frustrating af, I feel you. Even running with friends/acquaintances not in my guild I see this crap, and it makes what should be an hour-long run take 1.5-2.5 hours, easily.

 

That said, I agree with the poster between us in just getting in a good guild that takes their raiding more seriously. My regular raid team did a DF/DP speed run recently - 35 minutes on Dread Fortress and 45 minutes on Dread Palace. One-shot all bosses on both ops, kept a pretty good clip through trash, only had one bio break between the ops.

 

My guild's also recently started a weekly event on impside, that for some reason the officer-in-charge decided to call "Netflix and Chill" (no, seriously lol) which applies much the same rules as our regular raid team's speed run to other guildies/friends. I'm not going to post the whole event description here, but it clearly outlines that each player needs to know their class, know their role, know the op, and understand that there will be at most one bio break (usually before or after the third boss), and no random downtime. It's got a hard cutoff time because a few of the people running it are also in our regularly scheduled raid team, which is run right after - haven't missed that time yet.

 

So yeah, random pugs are not the optimal way to clear ops content. It can be frustrating, but you will, usually, eventually clear it. The best option is just to join a good guild that runs ops, and run it with them. Or even just become friendly with such a guild, and have them keep you in mind next time they run the Dread Ops (or whatever). 35 minutes is a pretty good time for Dread Fortress, but most competent, serious groups can and do clear it in well under an hour.

[cyrusramsey]

I really do enjoy operations, when I find the time and opportunity to play them. I liked them when I only ever pugged, taking four hours to finally clear DF for the first time, and I like them playing with a guild that makes them seem laughably easy even when fooling around. I would love to see a lot more operations in this game.

 

Having said that, I fully agree with the complaint here. I did not play operations yet when I first discovered Oricon, and I was absolutely not ready for them, either. If the questline would've had an [OPS] tag right from the start, I simply would've let it be, at the time, because I knew I wasn't going to do any operations. Instead the ops tag doesn't appear till right before the relevant operations start, right when you think you're going to experience the grand conclusion. That's not fun.

 

On top of that, now that I do play operations, I still don't like this setup, because I will regularly play DF and DP, and I regularly bring new characters through the Oricon story, but even with 123 characters and an insane amount of time poured into this game, not one single time have I been able to immediately get DF going after the Oricon story, let alone DP. It becomes a disjointed mess for people that try to immerse themselves in the story.

 

I love both components here, the soloplay and the ops, but they're completely different things that require a different approach to get started and have different elements to enjoy. It's very possible to enjoy both, but I don't think tricking solo players into running into an ops-wall is going to turn many of them into ops players, rather I think it makes most of them frustrated with the game.

 

I don't even understand how this is a debate. I understand the argument for more of either group content or solo content (or both, for that matter), but group content is not solo content, and mashing them together does not make for a coherent experience.

Edited September 14, 2017 by cyrusramsey

[Tsillah]

I recently (last weekend) went through the Oricon story and the short version is that after the H2 you are told, "OK now everything is ready or as ready as it will ever be...invade the Dread Fortress."

 

If the story were to end there for the character, it would seem disjointed IMO. basically being, "OK you've done all the grunt work now leave the real challenge to others." That is not a very "heroic" ending.

Yeah this was my concern. That means that to disconnect the ops quest from the story line, they need to make the end of the H2 story different. That's what might be the reason why BW haven't touched it as well.

 

The least that could be done is make it possible to abandon the ops quest and make it possible to pick up again at the console near DF. Won't solve the story ending but it will solve the quest being stuck in the log of a solo player at least.

[supertimtaf]

Yeah this was my concern. That means that to disconnect the ops quest from the story line, they need to make the end of the H2 story different. That's what might be the reason why BW haven't touched it as well.

 

The least that could be done is make it possible to abandon the ops quest and make it possible to pick up again at the console near DF. Won't solve the story ending but it will solve the quest being stuck in the log of a solo player at least.

 

It is possible to abandon it, the npc will give it to you again if you want to do it.

[Tsillah]

It is possible to abandon it, the npc will give it to you again if you want to do it.

 

Ahh, I never did myself cause I just do the ops, but I didn't realise you could abandon them. Well that's at least something for people who don't want it stuck in their quest log.

[Mubrak]

It is possible to abandon it, the npc will give it to you again if you want to do it.

 

Lol, confirmed.

I know you couldn't get the quest back pre 4.0 when you abandoned it, and in 4.0 it became a purple quest you couldn't abandon at all. Now you can abandon it and get it again from the NPC.

 

So... problem solved, I'd say?

Edited September 14, 2017 by Mubrak

[psandak]

But I do not think this is a matter of having the quest in one's log as much as one cannot complete the story without completing the operations. Being able to abandon the mission does not resolve that issue. Furthermore, it could complicate the issue because what if...

1. a player goes through the story
   
2. abandons the story mission for the operations
   
3. then manages to do the operations but neglects to get the story mission back
   

 

Yes that would be on the player for forgetting but you KNOW there would be complaints

[Tsillah]

Lol, confirmed.

I know you couldn't get the quest back pre 4.0 when you abandoned it, and in 4.0 it became a purple quest you couldn't abandon at all. Now you can abandon it and get it again from the NPC.

 

So... problem solved, I'd say?

 

It's not an elegant solution story wise but it's at least something. In the end I think that for BW to pull that convo apart and make the ending different is just not gonna happen.

[juliushorst]

1. a player goes through the story
   
2. abandons the story mission for the operations
   
3. then manages to do the operations but neglects to get the story mission back
   

1. Player is new and very afraid of doing OPS or interacting with people in a game,

2. Player somehow finds a friendly group and does DF with them,

3. The group does DP next and invites the player for a ride, they all have lots of fun killing Dread Masters,

4. When DP is over the player realizes he didn't click the thing after DF and didn't progress the quest to DP. He needs to do DP again but luckily he now finds ops fun and doesn't mind.

True story

[Ylliarus]

It's not an elegant solution story wise but it's at least something. In the end I think that for BW to pull that convo apart and make the ending different is just not gonna happen.

 

Aye it would be the easiest solution for Bioware to do but I will admit that it's story wise a rather problematic one. Yet as you say it would be at least something. Naturally I'd prefer something along the lines of Revan but if the mission log would get emptier I'd be more than happy.

[Batwer]

We are still waiting for it ....

Oricon is the only story that can not be completed solo. I do all stories with all toons. But I have no desire to run with all through the Ops. I don't want the reward, just complete the quest. It does not hurt anyone to decide whether to run the ops or solo them.

Just create a small instance. There you put in 1-2 mobs. Those who struggle with the ops can get a big reward.

[Rion_Starkiller]

So... instead of taking 2 hours out of your day to run the ops, you want the devs to put who-knows-how-many-hours into re-creating the story for solo? The story doesn't change per class. And the quest/mission is basically a generic side mission.

 

Dread Fortress and Dread Palace have very iconic boss fights. They are my favorite operations.

Let madness release you.

Edited April 4, 2019 by Rion_Starkiller